The disclosure relates generally to thermal imagers, and more particularly, to a low power thermal imager for integrated circuits with vertical tunnel junctions and modulated metal/insulator interface conditions.
Radiation sensors mainly in infrared (IR) and terahertz energy regions have been shown to be important for practical applications such as thermal sensors/imagers, body scans for security purposes, etc. There are different types of thermal detectors in the market such as pyroelectric detectors, thermoelectric detectors, or bolometer detectors. Pyroelectric detectors works efficiently only at higher temperatures (e.g., >300° C.) by measuring the wavelength of the IR assuming a black body radiation. Standard thermoelectric detectors using active matrix structure cannot be envisioned and will have electronic noise. Bolometer detectors work due to change in resistance with heat/temperature with respect to a heat reservoir. Currently, there is a dearth of low power sensitive radiation sensors.